Mark Manson: Money, Dating, & The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck

Andrew Tate is what men with no self-esteem think high self-esteem looks like. Unpack that a little bit.

So it's funny, like, watching the rise of Tate because he's like a copy and paste of—

20 million plus copies sold, the champion, the no fucks champion, official title, I think. Mark Manson, welcome. Welcome to the pod.

When Subtle Art came out and it blew up and it was like at the top of all the bestseller lists and stuff, like, everybody in the publishing industry were like, oh, you're like the new phenom, debut author, overnight success, and all this. I'm like, overnight success? I've been grinding on blog for 10 years. Like, what do you mean overnight success?

Were you good at the beginning or did you suck?

No, dude, I was a fucking disaster. I was a total disaster.

You obviously became a great writer, but I want to talk about what you're doing now, which is the YouTube video or the YouTube channel. And is that like the main thing?

When I saw MrBeast, a light bulb went off. I was like, I love MrBeast and like I've been watching his shit for a long time, but one of my frustrations with him is that it's all very Yeah, I feel like I can rule the world. I know I could be what I want to. I put my all in it like no days off on the road. Let's travel, never looking back.

Intro to the camera here. We got 3-time New York Times bestseller, I believe. Yeah, we have 20 million-plus copies sold. The champion, the No Fucks Champion, official title, I think. Mark Manson, welcome. Welcome to the pod.

Good to be here.

Uh, been a fan for a while. Um, although I gotta admit, I read like a ton of your blogs and I didn't read the book until like, and I still haven't actually finished the book, but I, until we booked this interview, I was like, I should probably go read the actual book that he's most famous for. Yeah. But there's something to like the fun of like, oh, I liked his, his old shit, you know, like the cool band thing.

I was a fan before he was cool.

Yeah.

That whole thing.

Yeah. I actually was going to ask. So, so. When I was writing that intro, I was like, this is pretty great. Pretty impressive.

Yeah.

But I always wonder this, like, when you were younger, like, let's say, let's say a researcher was watching you when you were like, I don't know, between the ages of 10 and 20, would it have been noticeable that you approached things a little different even when you were younger?

I was definitely different when I was young, for sure. I don't think it would have been obvious that I would, I was going to end up an author or in the personal development industry or whatever. But, you know, my whole life, my teachers were like, Mark's different. He's special. We wish he would do his homework. We wish he would stay awake in class, but he could do great things one day. Like, that was kind of the constant refrain throughout my childhood.

Because you just weren't interested in school, or what was the situation?

Yeah, I was bored and, and I would, I would just, whatever I was into, that's just kind of what I, like, I used to bring poker books to class and read them in the middle of like physics class and my teachers would get mad at me and I'm like, well, I'm just like studying poker, you know?

Were you big into like, yeah, yeah, yeah. During like the Chris Moneymaker phase basically? Oh yeah. Yeah. That's cool. Um, did you ever like go all in on it?

I tried. So it's funny. Um, Early on in college, I decided to sit down and take it really seriously. I made a few thousand bucks, which when you're like 19 or 20, it's massive, right? I'm like, oh my God, I can pay rent all summer off my poker winnings. And then I hit—

you were in college?

Yeah.

So you're paying like, you know, $20 grand for school, but ignoring school to make $300 in a sit-and-go?

Exactly. Like, I'm staying up till 5 a.m. Like, I made $200 last night, right? And then I hit my first big downswing. And lost like half my bankroll in like maybe 3 days, 4 days.

Right.

And I was like, oh shit, I don't think I can pay rent this month. You know, I'm like, this kind of sucks actually.

Yeah.

It's like a very, very unhealthy, unhealthy life. I love the game, but the lifestyle that it requires, like the grinding, the patience, like the, the emotional fortitude to like handle the ups and downs, it's Yeah, after about 6 months, I was like, I don't think I'm built for this.

Right. And you, uh, there's a lot of like degenerates you end up hanging around, like, uh, doing it. So you kind of look around and you're like, this isn't healthy. It's like, yeah, yeah. It's like they're not smoking, but there's like a secondhand smoke of their like life that's like, I don't want to be inhaling right now.

For sure.

For sure. So I think we had kind of a similar, um, set of interests. Maybe it's like very common for, I don't know, guys that are going through some rites of passage. It's like, yeah. You think you can play poker or like count cards in blackjack and then you sort of move on to like the next phase. Yeah, exactly. Um, where, you know, there's a, I think 2005, a book comes out that I know influenced you. It influenced me. Yep. Uh, do you know what I'm talking about?

Of course.

The Game.

The Game. Neil Strauss.

Yep. Ironically, my girlfriend, my girlfriend in high school before I went to college, we were like, yeah, let's break up. We're going to college in two different places. We were pretty mature about it. But she was like, here's a book. And I was like, that's the best backhanded compliment gift I've ever received. It's like your girlfriend giving you a book called The Game and it's like, you need this for college.

Yeah.

Yeah. Describe how did you find it and what was like the next 24 hours after you started reading it?

You know, it's funny, it hit me at, depending on your perspective, the exact best or worst moment possible. So my first girlfriend in high school had just cheated on me and left me for another dude, and I was completely heartbroken, just gutted, you know, weepy, whiny.

And sucks even more in high school because like leaving you is like, she's still there.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We're still in the hallway. Yeah. Well, I would, by this time I was in college, but like we had gotten together in high school anyway. It was, we didn't, we didn't. You made the right move. So we didn't split up. We were like, oh, we're in love. We're going to make it work. I'm going to drive back every other week and all this shit. And it's like, no, that's a horrible idea. And so of course she found another guy.

You should actually look in the camera and be like, to the person who's 18 right now, don't do that. It's not going to work. The long-distance girlfriend when you both go to college.

Dude, just don't do it. And so anyway, I was absolutely heartbroken and distraught and just like very angry and confused. And I remember being in a bookstore and seeing, seeing that book like on the table. And I remember my first reaction was disgust. I was like, it's like, what is this? Like, who would read this?

Right.

And then I'm like, yeah, maybe I'll read a few pages. And, and I mean, Neil's such a good writer. Like it talk about somebody who knows how to like hook your attention and kind of suck you into a world. Um, yeah, I just, I think I sat down and read probably the first 50, 100 pages there in the bookstore. Uh, and then I think I read the entire thing in just a couple days and that was pretty much it. Like I was like, all right, like, you know, the one girl who ever liked me completely fucked me over, broke my heart. And every other girl I've ever met seems to have no interest. So clearly I'm not doing something right. You know, like I'm willing to give anything a go at this point. And, uh, so yeah, I, I kind of got sucked into that world for, um, Well, I guess 4 years, 5 years, and then eventually kind of stumbled into my first business was in that world as well.

Yeah. And I want to talk about that because I think it's again, like, I, it was like a formative phase of my life too. And so today I think a bunch of people rightfully so, you know, like, like you admire you, follow you and you like add a lot of value to people's lives, right? Like even though self-help kind of like sometimes gets a bad rep. Like you're almost by definition helping people with themselves, right? Like the most important thing. But I would say like it's probably a rabbit hole you went down now and content you create now, but that previous rabbit hole you went down and content you created was around, uh, there it is, there it is. Uh, oh yeah. This is your first book, right? Yep. Uh, Models Attract Women Through Honesty. Yep.

Um, at least that subtitle is like, you know, well, we can get to this in a second, but before that. That was a very, very intentional— yeah, that, that's jumping ahead a couple of years, but yeah.

So let's start with, okay, so you read The Game, you get, you know, kind of the, uh, I always say this about Tim Ferriss's book, The 4-Hour Workweek, is like after you read that book, you have the 4-hour fever. It's like for the next 4 hours you reconsider your entire life in like a fever dream. And I just tell people that when I give them the book, I'm like, you're going to have to schedule some time. You're going to need this weekend to have the 4-hour fever. Um, Same kind of thing happens with The Game and you become, you start, I guess you describe it, you start practicing it. So let's start, start with like, you start actually practicing it for people who haven't read The Game and don't know the core principles of it. Like what stood out to you at that time of like, oh, I used to do things this way, but this is like this kind of thing I'm learning, this new skill I'm learning.

Well, so the, there's a funny thing about The Game, which is, and it's, it's funny too, cause I would put The 4-Hour Workweek in this category as well in that. Those are— if I was to make a list of like the 5 most impactful books that I've ever read in my life, those 2 would be on the list for sure. Right. That said, I don't actually like the majority of advice in both of those books. I don't think actually was applicable to me or actually worked for me. Right. It was more just showing what was possible. Right. So, and definitely more so in The Game's case than for, you know, 4-Hour Workweek. It it's primarily principles and mindsets. You know, my, my issue with The 4-Hour Workweek was that it just, it made it sound way easier than it was. It's, it's, you know, the, the real 4-Hour Workweek is, you know, work 16 hours a day so you can make money while you sleep. But with the game, I think the, the really powerful concept that was very life-changing was that social skills and dating are skills that you can practice and get better at. Like, that never occurred to me. It just occurred like up to that point in my, my life, like most young people, I just kind of assumed like, well, either girls are into you or they're not. And if they're not, you're kind of, you're kind of fucked, right? Or not fucked in that case. But like it. So reading that book and being like, oh, you can actually go out and practice and get better social skills and get better at Being sexual and flirting and, and connecting with women and doing all these things like that, those are all skills that you can practice. Like, that was very revelatory for me. That said, when I actually went out and tried to do the stuff in the game, which was a bunch of cheesy pickup lines, and they called them routines, like, like stories, magic routines, stories you would memorize and all this stuff, it was a fucking disaster. Like, it was just, it was completely corny and I felt very inauthentic and out of place. But like, what was impactful is that it got me out of the house and like talking to women on a regular basis. And I realized like, hey, if I actually just get myself in front of a bunch of cute girls, I'm actually— I'm not that bad. Like, I can talk, I can make a joke, like I can use my own personality as a starting point and just build from there. Right? And so that's kind of what I started doing throughout college. And by the end of college, I kind of had developed a reputation as the big party guy, the player, you know, the guy who had 4 different girlfriends or whatever.

For me, I had the same experience you had except for, uh, the lamest moment, the rock bottom moment is when you hear another guy saying the same thing because he read the same book and you're like, oh shit, there's like 100 of us running around. Yeah. It's like this thing I was going to say by itself was actually a little bit cringe. Yeah, maximally cringe if she heard this from another guy. And I was like, oh, okay, I can't just like— there's no memorizing your way to success here. But the principles I thought were good. And you're right, the forcing function of like getting you to like kind of, uh, believe, uh, the self-confidence to believe that this might actually work, that you can actually approach somebody and have a good conversation and that that could lead to something. Yeah, it was pretty powerful. I even do this with podcasts. Like I have like a note of like What's the first thing I'm going to talk about with you? Like, I kind of know that the next 90 minutes will be great either way.

Sure.

But that first minute is like the social anxiety piece, which is like the same thing with, with these pickup artists, which is like most people just aren't even approaching anyone. Yeah. With anything that's of interest that might lead to a conversation. Um, so for me, that was like the bigger thing. Do you, uh, still have that kind of like— do you think about that moment of social anxiety, that first, um, that first moment and like, was the game helpful in like getting those reps?

For sure. I mean, I had a lot of social anxiety when I was young and, and it's funny because it took me a long time to appreciate that, that, you know, because when you're kind of naive and a newbie, you look at all the pickup lines and you think it's the pickup line that's working, right? And it's like, no, it's actually the pickup line is just the excuse to kind of get you through your anxiety, to give you the courage to actually go say something. It doesn't really matter what you're saying, right? And Uh, I actually had a very fort— you know, kind of like you hearing, overhearing another guy say a word. I actually got very lucky early on because I was trying to use some of the stuff I read in the game. I started, I tried to do like some fucking coin magic tricks and stuff, like just total disaster. And, uh, I remember I, I, I was having no luck whatsoever and I actually got very fortunate in that I was in a bar or something. I was talking to these 3 girls and I was like trying to do a magic trick and they were like really into it and really excited. And I kept fucking it up. And then like, it kind of got awkward. And at a certain point they realized, they're like, wait, like you're just doing a thing, like kind of hit on us. And I like tried to make a joke and it was super lame or something. And they kind of rolled their eyes and they started to walk away. And I was like, wait, I have another magic trick. And I remember one of the girls turned around and she looked at me and she was like, you know, you were kind of cute. Like you should just. Be yourself. I was like, right, you know, like head explode. And I was, and, and that was kind of one of those first moments where I'm like, you know what, like, why don't I just start, like, use my personality as the baseline and then iterate on stuff that already feels natural and trying to, instead of trying to be like some fucking weird dude in a book, right. You know, that I can't believe I spent $10,000 in 2 years of my life studying all this shit. I could have just like walked up and been like, Hi, where are you from? And it would have gotten me the exact same results.

There's a book that's like a food diet book. I haven't even read the book, but the last page of the book is like a summary. You might know the book because you're, you're, you're an author. It's like, here's the, like, after all the studies and all the diets, because like, you know, there's like a trillion diets out there and like, they're like, some are super complicated. You're like, you know, peeing on a strip to see if you're like in ketosis or not. Yeah. You could do, you can take it to the nth degree. And it was like, Yeah. So it seems like the rules are, you know, eat real food, like not like packaged processed food, like eat real food, not too much. And like, and it was like, that was like basically the core of the advice. And it's like, oh yeah. And like, but if you actually intensely followed that, you would get all the results you want. But like there's this thing where we sort of search for this like other answer, the secret answer. Yes. It can't possibly be just that.

And I see this everywhere, like, because I'm mostly in the kind of startup business world and like, you know, Warren Buffett, they're like, you know, Warren, you're pretty open about your strategies.

Yeah.

It's like that bell curve meme where it's like, you know, genius. And then it's like, just make something people want. And then in the middle of the bell curve, it's like, well, you've got to have these 12 steps and figure out these strategies, you know? And then the Jedi is like, just make something people want.

I love that meme. That's, I told Matt, I was like, that's the meme of the year. It's the meme of the year.

It's so true across so many domains. It's amazing.

Yeah. And I catch myself all the time and I'm like, I need, what would the Jedi? Oh, the Jedi would just say like, yeah, do it because it's fun instead of like, yeah, you know, all these other things. Yeah. Um, when you look back, cause Ben's been flashing a bunch of your, like, I noticed Ben, Ben, he flashes a bunch of your things that are like, this is the cringe section of the, don't worry, it gets better. The interview will get better, but this is the cringe section. Uh, but you have like a bunch of these things that I'm like, They're like just amazing headlines. We're going to talk titles later because you're like a title master. But when you look back, do you— how— what's the meaning you put or like what's the label you put on these things? I think we're both of the mindset that like life is not really about what happens. It's kind of like what you, what you make of it and also what you tell yourself, the story you tell yourself about what happened.

Yeah.

So like when you look back on that phase, is it just like, um, cringe and I don't want to ever think about, like, I hope I forget about that. Is it like, know that was actually really useful for me in these ways? Is it just funny now? Like, what's your reaction now?

It's a really good question. I would say it's probably like one-third cringe, one-third I think it was actually really important and formative in a lot of ways. And then one-third just kind of funny and just like, can you believe that happened? Uh, I actually, when I moved out here to LA, um, I met up with Neil for the first time and we spent a day together and we spent like half the day just kind of being like, Can you believe that happened? Right. Can you believe we actually did that? I, I look back, though, especially now that a little bit more time has gone by, I really do think there was kind of an underrated factor. And I think this is very relevant because this is starting to happen again with Gen Z, with— I think the pickup artist industry is underrated as a cultural or social phenomenon, particularly for young men trying to find identity or find themselves in like a very confusing world with a lot of information. Because it's, when I look back at that time, like, yeah, like we, in the industry, the coaches, we used to joke with each other. It was like, yeah, we all came for the women, but we stayed for the other dudes. Yeah, exactly. It's most of the guys who really got into that, it wasn't about the girls. It was, they needed to feel accepted and, and and validated by other men and, and just, I guess, I don't know, their masculinity, right? There was like a very— there was like this yearning for like a masculine role model. And I always found that I was very aware of that at the time, but I didn't really know what to make of it. But as the years have gone on, I look back and I think like, I think it blew up to the extent it did because, because of that. I don't think it was really about the dating or the girls. I think it was just it was a generation of kind of post-feminism, a generation of like men who had fewer father figures, fewer role models, a lot more confusion about like who they're supposed to be in the world. And I think we're, that's, that cycle's coming back today. And you're seeing a lot of that happen again with a different set of role models and, uh, a different industry.

Well, let's talk about one of them. Uh, so I think Andrew Tate is like the, for sure. Uh, you know, poster boy right now of that. Uh, Ben, can you pull up that tweet? He has— you have a great tweet about energy I want to ask. Yeah, yeah. Andrew Tate is what men with no self-esteem think high self-esteem looks like. As a rule, narcissism is, is always mistaken for confidence by those who have no confidence. From there, it doesn't take much for the dynamic to turn abusive/exploitive.

Yeah, so it's funny, like, watching the rise of Tate because he just, he's like a copy and paste of half the guys that were in that industry. Right. You know, it's like all the shit he says. I'm like, oh yeah, I remember, you know, this guy used to say that. Oh yeah. That guy used to say that too. Oh yeah. That guy made a lot of money saying that, you know, like it's all the same shit, just recycled in a new package. I do think Tate is uniquely charismatic and I think he has an interesting backstory that a lot of young men respect. Right. And so that, That is, it's given him a lot more amplification. It's also just a different era with social media and everything.

Uh, but, and he like layered on an MLM. Yeah, right. So he just combined like 3 of the most powerful forces in the world.

Yeah, seriously.

Pretty insane charisma with like this like cocktail of like words that cast a spell on young men. Yeah. And then an MLM distribution model where he's like, look, cut up clips of me and post them everywhere. And like, that's how you rise in the ranks and you get like you're going to make money by promoting me, which is insane.

It's honestly somebody really needs to do. I mean, it probably— we probably need some time, but like 10 years from now, I want to see somebody do like a really good book about him and like a fair book, not like trying to smear, like take an honest look of like, who was this guy? Why did he blow up? Why did this work? Right? Like, because it's— I think it's easy. Obviously, you can take the worst things that he said It's no secret some of the bad things he said, and you can just hammer on those all day. But like, I think that's way less interesting than just trying to understand, like, why is there such a demand for this guy again? Right? Like, I thought we kind of got over this and this kind of ties back into my first book, Models. So like the pickup industry by like 2009, 2010, I had really, really become burnt out on, on just the toxicity of it. And I, I really felt that there were kind of two strains of dating relationship advice for men. One was basically promoting narcissism, selfishness, power dynamics. And sure, that stuff can get you laid a lot, but it's, it's at the expense of preventing any sort of happy or joyous long-term relationship or intimacy with any female ever. Right? So you're like giving up that potential to just like put notches on your bedpost and brag to your buddies. And that is a very bad trade-off. Like if you look at just in the terms of a man's overall lifespan, that's a very bad trade-off. And then so I was, I was kind of like, okay, how do we like detoxify this, this advice? What does that look like? How do we— and it's not just about treating women with respect, but it's treating yourself with respect too. Because like, what a lot of guys don't realize is that, yeah, obviously if you objectify women, it's bad for the women, but it's bad for you too because you're objectifying yourself. You're start— you're basically just measuring yourself by how wet your dick gets. And like, that's a very demeaning way to view yourself and view your own self-esteem. And so I was kind of fed up with the whole thing. I knew I wanted to get out. I wanted to pivot out of the industry. And I was like, well, if I'm getting out of the industry, I might as well just write the book that everybody needs to hear and nobody wants to hear, which is that this is all toxic and fucked up and stop doing it.

Were you good at the beginning or did you suck?

No, dude, I was a fucking disaster. I was a total disaster. Um, you, do you want me to talk about the content side or the marketing side?

Whatever's more interesting, you tell me.

And, uh, have you seen, by the way, MrBeast has like almost the exact verbatim answer?

Yes. And I love it because yeah, it's the exact same thing I used to tell people.

And it's a combination of like, it's actually the right advice because you need a bunch of reps and you need to suck for a little bit and get better. Just try to make each of the next video better. And nobody's also, it's a filter. It's like, are you serious or are you not serious? I will help you if you're serious. Yes. But 99% of you are not serious. This is the easy test.

Exactly. Exactly. And the funny thing is too, is that it's like most people, if they go write 100 blog posts and try to make each one better, By the 100th one, they don't need the advice anymore. They know what they're doing wrong. They know what they need to get better at.

So was there anything that got you better? What did you read something or follow some, or, uh, you know, model yourself after someone? Like, do you remember how you got good in terms of writing and content?

My two big inspirations, I was a huge Bill Simmons fan back in the day.

Wow. We were like very, very aligned.

Like, I don't know.

Yeah. Back in the day, Page 2.

And you end up feeling like a friend. It's like it's a hang. Yeah.

And I think it, that probably hurt me in the short run and it helped me in the long run.

I tried to meet up with him when we came out here. I was like, I want to schedule it. I was like, who's my dream guest? I was like, I would love to have Bill Simmons on this because I don't, he doesn't do a lot of like where he's the guest. I don't think I've never really seen any to be honest.

Like, yeah, he's like a, he's a big deal at Spotify now.

So he's, you know, he's yeah, that's fine. But like, whatever, who cares? But he's written some, if you haven't, if people haven't read this, go read, uh, I think it's called like The Consequences of Caring. Unbelievable post. So good. Uh, anyway, sorry, continue. So Bill Simmons inspired you to be like, I don't need to like sell out to the algorithm, the algorithm of that time, the meta of that time.

Yeah. And it's, I also think it helped that I, I was in a pretty niche and, uh, insulated industry. Like everybody kind of knew each other and everybody talked about each other and everything. So it, it actually, I think it helped me get, get my name out even more because I was, I did have a knack for writing, it seemed. And I did eventually start posting some pretty good stuff. And, and so that kind of got talked about and shared.

Do you remember what was, like, kind of your first thing that broke out?

Right? Yeah, I was doing like, you know, that's like the low status thing in society. He's like, I'm a blogger.

Yes, exactly.

So you're unemployed? Like, what is that? You know, I got stories.

It's like, what the fuck? Don't lie.

I was like, do you want tax returns? Like, Jesus Christ, what do I have to do to get you people to believe in me? But anyway, we're jumping around now. You know, the— yeah, the content side. I don't know. I just— I had this weird confidence of like, I saw that Bill Simmons trajectory over the Page Two days and I'm— and he did it differently than everybody else. And I was like, Why can't I do that?

Right?

And I'm not going to post 20 times a day. I'm just going to do like one epic article that everybody gets excited about. And that was kind of my M.O. And it's funny because that eventually became the meta, kind of the more Facebook era in the early 2010s. So I was like ahead of the curve, I guess. On the marketing side, I was trash. I was just like, selling does not come natural to me at all. It was very much something that I had to consciously train myself, practice. I took a bunch of copywriting courses. I like went to marketing seminars, pirated marketing seminars like that was always the— it's funny because it's like the, the psychology side, the personal development side of everything, the social dynamics, the relationship advice, like that all came very easily and naturally to me. And it was just, it was fun. It was like kind of a hobby. So it was like, I never really had to like work hard to kind of figure that out. Like anything I was working on getting better at in my business, it was always the sales and marketing stuff, right? Like figuring that shit out.

So you've done, uh, so those content reps got in, you obviously became a great writer and we'll talk about the book in a second, but I want to talk about what you're doing now, which is the YouTube video. Sure. Or the YouTube channel. And it seems like that's I don't know, is that your, like, is that like the main thing? Is that like, this is my new baby?

Right now that's the new main thing, yeah.

And so, uh, I think you dropped the first, first, like, um, video maybe a couple days ago and doing super well. Can you pull it up? I want to actually do a little, so one of my favorite little content things is this, um, this thing that happens in sports and football. Uh, they like take quarterbacks that are about to be drafted and I don't know if you've ever seen this. They sit down, they like look at game film with them just to see kind of how they think.

Sure.

And, um, it's my favorite thing in any podcast is like when you can really like, not like talking the abstract, but talking the specific, like, like, why did you do this? Like, how did you think about this? Um, and we hung out with MrBeast and we did that with some of his videos and the way he thinks, you're like, oh, okay, I get it. I get like, I learned something tactical, but also just, I get you more. Um, versus when you ask him general questions. And so I kind of want to play this game. I don't know how it's going to work, but we'll try it. I want to know the thought that went into this. Let's watch the first 10 seconds. I want to hear you talk about it.

Okay. What would you do if someone offered you $10,000 to do whatever it takes to overcome your social anxiety? Could you do it? Would you even know where to start? I decided to find out. All right, let's pause right there. Yeah. Yeah.

All right. Walk me through that. Well, a lot was happening there. What was— how do you think about this? Obviously some MrBeast inspiration here.

He was very inspirational. So Let me zoom out for a second more broadly, and then I can kind of come back to this video specifically. So early in my career, I did a lot of coaching, first with the pickup stuff and then just kind of like life advice in general. I stopped coaching for a lot of reasons, but one of them is I was consistent. I was very frustrated by it, which was that I feel like the incentive, like the way the incentives are structured within coaching industries in the personal development world are counterproductive, right? So it's like if you're paying me a bunch, like, let's say, I don't know, you have like self-esteem issues and you're paying me a bunch of money to like help you out. It's first of all, my incentive isn't to fix your self-esteem issues. Like my, my incentive is to make it feel like I'm fixing your self-esteem issues, even though they're still there.

Like a pharmaceutical company. Yeah, exactly. I don't want to cure you.

Exactly. And then on your side of the equation, it's what often happens in practice, like, or on the customer side is what often happens in practice is people kind of show up, they pay you, say, $1,000, and they're like, well, I just paid you $1,000, so you deal with it, right? Like, I've been dealing with this my whole life. I just paid you a bunch of money. You deal with it now, right? Like, that's actually what they're looking for. And so I hated that dynamic. It felt very I mean, it works some of the time, but in a lot of cases it felt very icky and I kind of found myself in like awkward situations with clients and stuff. So I just got away from it entirely and just kind of stuck to books and courses and everything. When I saw MrBeast, a light bulb went off. I was like, because I love MrBeast and like I've been watching his shit for a long time, but one of my frustrations with him is that it's all very surface level. Like, I'll watch a MrBeast video and I'll get to the end and I'm like, I want to know about the guy who won. Yeah. I'm like, tell me about the guy who won or tell me like you're down to 4 people. Tell me about their lives. Like, bring their families in. Like, I want to see, let's get some juicy drama going.

I talked to him about this.

Yeah.

And I was like, uh, cause I was like, he was talking about like a Netflix or like TV shows. Yeah. And it was like, oh, like, you know, what can you learn about TV shows? What can you, what do you learn from like TV shows that have been running for a long time, do really well? And he says that he's like, uh, also I think they can learn a lot from us. And he's like, yeah, he's like, I'd love to see their retention curve. Um, right. He's like, they just don't know where people are dropping off. He's like, what we found was like, if you hit them, hit them, hit them with like the more of like the action and the stakes and then the quest and like the curiosity, you open the loop and like that's going to keep people. He's like, but he's like, but I do think the one thing TV does well is character. He's like, we don't do any narrative or character, and I got to figure out how I'm going to do that. Yeah, he's like, I don't know. He's like, I don't know how to do that yet, but like, we should probably learn that. Yeah.

So this is, this is kind of another side statement and this gets more into like my personal strategy or like opportunities I see in the future. But like, it's the current media environment. I think traditional media, they've always had the luxury of having that lock-in of like you're in a theater and it's more, it's like once you're in a theater, it's more difficult to leave than to sit through a bad movie. So everybody just sits through a bad movie. You know, it, and it's in the previous era of television, it's, you know, you don't want to sit there and like flip around for 10 minutes looking for something else. So you sit there and just kind of watch a mediocre show. So it's like traditional media is coming from 100 years of a luxury of just having that buy-in and having you like locked in. And, and so they can take the time it requires to build character, build narrative, build, build drama, right? And, and create those very emotional moments that we've all had with our favorite movies and TV shows. YouTube is kind of the other way around. Like, there's always shit fighting for your attention and trying to get you to click off. And so YouTube is just retention, retention, retention. Like, it's merciless and absolutely brutal. And so I think we're in an interesting media environment where YouTubers have become masters of retention and the content on YouTube is super hooky and click-through rate, right?

Like those two, two variables.

That's kind of genius.

Yeah. I was like, fuck, I need to make this. Uh, so this is our first attempt at it. And it's funny because this was shot end of April, early May. This is, we're recording this end of July. Um, there are like, I'm already aware of like 15 things that are wrong with this video. And like, they're like, it's, it's actually underperforming our expectations and like there's so many things that we need to fix, but it's the first rep. Yeah, it's the first rep. It's like the first, it's like the beta test, but super, super excited about the format.

The concept makes a ton of sense. And also like even just mechanically, like the things you just said. So if, you know, coaching is getting somebody to like transform, the way they transform is not information, it's doing it. Yeah. Best way to get somebody to do it is maybe a financial incentive or even like the fact that they agree to be in the content. Yeah. There's a contract there to like do the thing. Um, but you also, how can you offer $10,000 to, why could you pay your co— that's not a sustainable business, but it is if it's YouTube content, right? So like you have like almost the full loop to be able to make something.

It creates a, it creates a very beautiful flywheel of you're helping that individual. So in this video, it's a woman named Melinda. So I'm helping Melinda and she did get amazing results. Uh, you know, she's finally doing the things that she's always known that she should do or has always wanted to do. You get to all the people watching, because I could easily make a video of me sitting at a desk talking about social anxiety for 15 minutes. Everybody's heard the same shit. They've all like, everybody knows what I'm going to say. Now millions of people get to actually watch somebody overcome their character overcome. Yeah. It's like, oh, that's what it looks like. Oh, that's what, how people respond in that situation.

You know, the difference between watching Rocky. And then some, or somebody sitting at a chair and saying, you just got to work really hard. Yeah.

Yeah.

It's a different emotional register. And one you remember 20 years later and still think about when you work out and the other one you don't.

Totally. So it's the qualitative feedback on this. It's been honestly, it's been some of the best of my entire career. Like we, if you look through the comments of this video, there's tons of comments of people saying I cried, right? This was me. Oh my God, like, I was not expecting this. This is so powerful. You know, it's pretty incredible.

And so how did you think about those first 10, 15 seconds? I don't know how long we went, but like, what are you trying to achieve in those first 15 seconds of this video?

So with YouTube content, there's always this question of like, what's the hook? Like, what's going to get people to buy in? What's going to get people to stick around? And one of the challenges that we face with this format is that all of the, all the stuff that we're having people do, it's, it's, it's super abstract. Like social, social anxiety is super abstract. Like how do you show social anxiety? It's like not very obvious how you show that visually, uh, or like low self-esteem. How do you show that visually? So we were thinking about like, okay, what are like kind of like hooks or gimmicks that we can like implement into the format that can get people bought in, right? And The first and most obvious in this, in the current MrBeast meta is fucking money, right? It's like everybody on YouTube's doing it. It seems to be working for a lot of people. So kind of the obvious starting point is like, okay, well, what if we—

Jedi, right? Jedi and the numbskulls. What if you gave him $10,000? It's like, what if you gave him $10,000?

But the funny thing is, is that it actually, this intro did not perform very well. And so what do you, what is that?

What tells you that? Like you're looking at the curve, you're like, oh, retention chart. What should it have been for? What do you think it should have been to be like good?

Well, I think the, the issue with this is that even though it's money, it's still, it's still not visual enough. It's still too abstract. And so I think what we've learned from this one is that the new approach needs to be, we just need to start like mid-challenge. So like the first challenge in this video is just approach. We, yeah, we take her into a mall and we tell her she has to find somebody from Canada and like she runs.

By the way, it's so funny because she, it's, it's so like relatable, which is why I think you should have started with this. I was actually going to suggest this. Yeah. It's so relatable because You tell her like, someone in this mall is from Canada. You need to go approach them and ask them and find them. And she's like, nervous laugh. And then she starts like faking being on a phone call, like, which is, everybody's done it. Like, and then she's like, it's like, are you faking a phone? It's like, yeah, I am. I just, I don't know. It makes me feel more comfortable. Dude, she was so relatable.

Such a spaz. Right. Such a spaz. It was really fun. And, and yeah, in hindsight, it's like, we should have just opened up with that. And then explain the format later. Yeah. But like, yeah, I mean, we're new. We're, we're, we're paving the road as we drive down.

You also have to like cast.

Yes.

Which is hard. And you don't know what's going to happen. And like, this is kind of reality TV. For sure. And there's also like how this, I would say this is a common theme from The Pickup to Subtle Art to now this, which is how do you avoid selling out? So like, yeah, when you've been in the, the industry, you kind of know, okay, if I pull this lever, I'm going to get more juice.

Yeah.

Like maybe, maybe this will— let's just pretend if this woman's transformation was not that, that crazy, but like in the edit you could kind of like— oh, for sure, make this video better. It's like, do we want to have our video be better or worse? Obviously better, but at the same time we don't want to sell out. How have you just dealt with that? Like, how hard do I want to turn the knob or pull the lever of like, you know, manipulation to make something work?

The few that we've shot All of them have been very successful so far, but I've told the team that I want to be— eventually we're going to hit one that's not successful. Like we don't help the person, it doesn't work, right? Or maybe we help them a little, but they don't get there, right? I think it's very, very important to be honest about that and to actually make a video, like have the video kind of explore why that is, you know, because it's Yeah, there's a credibility and authenticity that it's just so, so important, especially. And that's— it's been one of my criticisms of my own industry for 10, 15 years of just like the lack of trustworthiness, the lack of credibility.

Because if you promise the magic pill that works in 2 minutes, you're going to sell more. And if you say this takes you 2 years of tough work, right?

Right.

So you've probably dealt with that a bunch and like maybe now, you know, You got fuck you money from the book and you're like, I don't have to do that anymore. You know, I guess how has that changed your psychology?

Did you, um, do you watch the TV show The Bear by any chance?

I have not. Everybody says it's amazing, but I've not yet.

Yeah, it's actually, it's a little bit, I would say it's a little bit slow, but it pays off. It's the thing you talked about, which is like the retention curve for me was terrible at the beginning because it's slow. It's like, it's like one of those like cool shows where it's like, no, we're not going to like be clickbaity.

Yeah.

And I'm like, I'm kind of used to that hit. So, you know, like if you're really going to pay this off with character, it's going to take some time. But man, it does. There's like an episode in the second season. It's like such a huge payoff on character that like Now I'm like telling everybody, you gotta watch the show. Just get to the second season, get to the end of it. Yeah. You know, it's so, so satisfying. But there, um, but we talked, so we reached out to one of the writers and we were like, hey, you know, respect. And, uh, just, we'd like to learn from people like that. Like, how do you do this? How do you do this character thing? Um, have you learned anything in the process of like doing these videos of like, because it's new, it's not writing, it's not books. You now have like casting and characters and stuff that you probably haven't done before.

Like, First of all, I'm learning a million things. One of the reasons I wanted to do this too, I should specify, is like, you know, I came out of this period, the post-Subtle Art period of my career. I did 3 books back to back to back. I did a movie, like a bunch of traditional media success. Like everything was wildly successful, very busy, lots of money. I moved to LA, I took a few months off and I was just like, man, I miss like the grindy grassroots internet stuff, right? And, but what I also realized is like, I miss being bad at something. Like I miss, I miss just like throwing shit at a wall and being like, did that work? Like, no. All right, let's try this. You know, like in, in, in traditional media, I don't, you don't really have the flexibility to do that. Like you're, you're being, if a studio or a large publisher is bringing you in, it's because like they know you can make a hit and you need to make a fucking hit. And So I miss the internet days of like, all right, let's try 10 things and just know that like 6 are going to fail. And, uh, like that's just exciting to me. And so part of this project was like, I want to learn, I want to get back on a learning curve and like experience that again. And so, yeah, I've been learning a million things about video production, about, um, storytelling, visual storytelling in particular. Like one of the big lessons from this video is that I still very much just write like a book writer. Like a lot of the mistakes that were made in this video, it's because it was organized in such a way that would work really well on like an article or a book, but it works terribly on video.

What's an example? What do you mean?

So an example is, is like the intro, right? It's like, that's a great intro on paper. It's a terrible intro on video because it's abstract. It's not visually interesting. You know, it's like you start with the challenge, right? This woman spazz running around a mall, like asking people if they're from Canada, like that's super weird. And you're like, what? What's going on? And then it's like you slowly like drip context over the course of like 10 minutes. Whereas when you're writing a book or, or an article, like you have, you need to put all the context up front of like, this is what we're doing. This is what this is about. You know, it's like the old school essay. It's like, you gotta have your thesis in the first paragraph and then you gotta have your 3 bullets and like all this stuff. So. I still, my brain still kind of defaults to that and I'm having to like untrain myself in a lot of ways. The funny thing is, is like, and again, one of the reasons I'm doing this is I think my natural strength is story and character and narrative like that. That's where I shine naturally. What I'm weaker at is the retention, the hooks, the like, uh, Gen Z shit, the Gen Z shit.

Yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

That's so funny, man.

So you're doing this, this, uh, series. What's like the craziest or most interesting challenge? I guess you can't give it away too much, but like what, what concepts are like, ooh, I can't wait to see how that's going to turn out. Or like, I really want to try something like this.

A lot of the, the social stuff is like the most interesting. Cause it's, you can do a lot of fear-based stuff. I mean, you can take somebody up in a plane and throw them out, you know, make them skydive or whatever. And that's exciting. But like, I don't know. It doesn't feel like there's as much depth as like the social stuff. So, uh, we have a challenge in another video where I printed out flat earth flyers saying like, you know, do you, do you know the truth about the planet? You know, it's a picture of a flat earth. And I made her go into a public place and hand them out to people, right? And like try to convince them to be flat earthers. And she was like absolutely mortified, like just horrified. And, uh,, but it's super fun because then it's like, well, why do you care? Like, you don't know these people. You're never going to see them again. Like, why do you care? Why is it so horrifying? Right? Like, it's just, yeah, it's super exciting for me.

This is honestly, it's the most fun I'm having in my career in probably 6 or 7 years, which is a dope lesson because, you know, you wrote a book with Will Smith, you had a movie, you know, you got to do a bunch of things that like, I would say are like the on-paper, like The hashtag goals people think they want. And, uh, like actually that's not where the source of joy and happiness comes from. I think you, I think you had said something which was like happiness is from solving problems.

Yep.

Is that you? Is that you? Yeah. Which is when you start at the beginning of a learning curve, you're just going to suck and solve a bunch of problems to make something good.

It's like hanging by like a prestige thread.

It really is.

Right. Of like, oh yeah, status.

If it's not already, I mean, uh, would you say it is already?

I think if you're under 25, it is already.

Right. Fair enough. I want to talk to you about titles because I think you're a title master. Um, do you think you're good at titles?

Apparently I am.

I guess. So the book—

I don't feel good at them, but—

The book obviously has a good title and it started with— the book came from a blog post, correct? It wasn't intended to be like a book. It was like Yeah. Here's a blog post. Why'd you know to turn that one into a book, by the way? Was it like, did it hit in a different way or?

Yeah, that, that is that one. I mean, I had a lot of articles go viral over that period, like 2012 to 2015. Like I probably had 10 or 12 articles go super viral, but that one just hit on like a whole nother level. Like it was, so I had already written probably half the book when that article came out. And then when that article hit the way it did, my agent was like, hey, uh, I think you could, uh, change the title of the book.

Yeah. And you hadn't done a book in years, right?

Before that? No, I'd just done Models.

Models, right? So you were, uh, you were, you were, but you were already thinking about a book and then it was like, oh, lean into this one. So there's this di— uh, little picture or diagram. That's, is that, did you make that? Or, um, the one of the guy floating away on the balloons? Is that, is that, uh, from something? What is this?

That was an old meme.

Back in the day. Oh, okay. So good. Yeah.

Yeah. I love it.

And that's, that's like as good as that Midwit meme. It's like, yes, this image can become like, yeah, you know, transformational.

It's funny. Yeah. I haven't seen that, that I used, that used to be around everywhere back in like 2013, 2014. And then it's, I haven't seen it in a long time. Right. There was also the original article also, cause back then a big part of packaging an article for like Facebook and Twitter was what image pops up when you share.

Meta, the meta image.

Yeah. The, when you share. And so we used to spend a lot of, you know, kind of similar like thumbnails on YouTube. We used to spend a lot of time like looking for the right image for the share, share image on, on Facebook. And, uh, I think the other thing that made that article work was I think on Reddit one day, just randomly on Reddit, I saw somebody had photoshopped a picture of a kitten in front of like a bomb exploding, kind of like a caption thing.

That meme is huge.

Yeah. And so we, pulled that and used that as like the share, yeah, the share, the share image. And it was just kind of this magical combo of content, title, image, and it just like all worked.

Do you remember how you thought of that title? So The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck, where does that come from? Are you just sitting down? Are you just hammering out a bunch of possibilities or?

Let's pull up some of your other ones. So you have, uh, The Most Important Question of Your Life.

Yep.

That's good.

I like that. That was a huge one.

Cause you gotta know.

I need to know.

Yeah. Well, what does this jackass think he knows? Like, Probably nothing, but let me just check.

You have, uh, Life is a Video Game and Here Are the Cheat Codes. That's like a, you know, faster path.

That, that's become, um, I feel like that's become a, it's, so this is the other thing, like, I think a lot of, I guess my skill with this just came from cranking out articles in the Facebook era of like trying to get articles to go viral because it was like so much of it had to do with the title. And it's been interesting, you know, now that it's been 10 years, it's been interesting because some of these have kind of just become, I guess, classics. Yeah. Yeah. Like it's, you just see, there's probably 10 different brands that use these same titles all the time. And like the life is a video game one is like, I see that everywhere.

I wrote this thread about, um, that the first line of it was everybody, everybody seems to think Clubhouse is the next big thing.

Yeah.

But I think it's going to fail. And I was like, grab some popcorn. Here's, here's how I think it goes down. Yeah. Yeah. And that thing went crazy viral and like, I like my hero Malcolm Gladwell started following me. Bill Simmons DMs me. It's like, oh shit, this is like, this is amazing. I didn't know this could happen because like today the Facebook meta doesn't really work, but like Twitter threads actually for a period of time last recently could, could go viral. And, and now that same theme is like people just replace the next big thing, but here's, uh, you know, grab some popcorn. Here's how I think it goes down. It's like the copy paste, but it obviously like loses effect as it goes.

That's the other interesting thing too. That's kind of changed in the last 10 years. Like there was real, and I, I don't have any moral judgment around this, but it's, you know, 10 years ago it was very much a sense of like, if you came up with a title that like, like a banger, it was like, that was yours, right? Yeah. You know, it's like, no. And if somebody stole it, it was like, they're a piece of shit and you'd call them out and your audience would call them out and like, I used to get emails from fans being like, this guy copied your article and like all this stuff. Like I never get those emails anymore. Like it's everybody just rips everybody off now. So anybody who posts anything that goes viral anywhere, there's like the next day there's Half-Life, there's 20 more versions on every platform. And it's just like, it's the way the game's played today.

It's that meme that it's like, you know, I made this thing and then it's like the other guy holding it's like, I made this thing.

I made this.

Yeah. I don't think people even are aware of it anymore. Yeah. Um, Is blogging dead?

Did you podcast or do you podcast?

I do not.

Is there like a reason or why didn't it?

I never started one just because of lack of bandwidth, just like writing too many books. And then, but now that I'm doing the video stuff, like I'm probably going to do something in the podcasting space. It won't be something like this. Like Last thing the world needs is another interview podcast.

Don't step on my turf.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Right.

I made this.

I made this.

This is mine. But, um, I would, I do think it's, I think it, I would like to be in this medium in some shape or form.

So, right. Uh, you did a book with Will Smith and presumably spent a bunch of time with Will Smith.

Yep.

You know, when people meet celebrities, I always ask like, what are they like? Yeah. It's not like, I don't know, it's a real specific question.

It's kind of like, That's what everyone—

how are they? Yeah, everybody, everybody is like, how are they as a person? Yeah, it's kind of like, you know, like, are they big? Are they awesome? There's like that version of it. But to me, I'm sort of like, what was this? What was something you saw them do, or like something you witnessed that was like just not how the common person would have approached a given situation?

So the quick answer to the, the one everybody always asks, which is like, what's he like in person? He is Exactly like the Fresh Prince. Like, that is, I spent the, I remember spending one day with him and then I went back to the hotel and, and called my wife and I was like, he did not act on that show. Like, they literally just put him in a room and then put actors around him.

Right.

When you saw the Chris Rock slap or whatever, that's obviously kind of like not like, you know, Mr. Positive or whatever in that moment. Were you like, Yeah. What was your kind of— were you like stunned? Uh, like, because you know him more than— like, everybody's shocked because it's a shocking thing.

Yeah.

But when you know the person, you might have like either it's even more shocking than, than that, or it's less because you understood it.

Maybe it was coming from— it was definitely less shocking for me.

Um, he slapped you once or twice. Yeah, you're like, yeah, it's common.

Keep her name out of your mouth. Uh, no, I mean, like, one of the things and we— this is in the book— he had a very abusive alcoholic father, used to beat the shit out of his mom, and he was the oldest. He was the oldest child. He was the male, right? So he felt responsible and very protective. And so he has a lot of issues around women. He's very protective. He's very sensitive. Like, the women in his life are his Achilles heel. Like, that's— if you want to get to him, like, that's the route. Like, you can talk shit about him all day, all night, he's going to sit there and laugh. You find whatever, right? It's like you go after his mom, his daughter, or his wife, like, shit's going to get real, real fast. And so I wasn't surprised. It was funny, actually. I was watching it with my wife live and like, my wife turned to me and she was like, this is a bit, right? I was like, no, that's not a bit. Like, he's actually saying that right now. She's like, what?

I mean, You sent him a text afterwards or you like just give him space? Because uber famous people, you like, it's hard to even navigate. It's like, you don't want to be one of those people.

Yeah.

You're also like, am I, if I'm your friend, do I just send you something?

Like, yeah, it's weird. That's a whole, like, we could spend an hour just talking about that. That's like super weird. It's funny too. Cause it's like everybody who I've ever known in my life messaged me that night. Asking for like my opinion, right?

Whatever.

And I'm like, literally people like I haven't talked to since high school, you know, are like reaching out. I'm like, wait, this is the thing that got you to reach out? Like all the shit I did, you didn't like, didn't bother, like, you know, couldn't be bothered to say anything. But like this, this got you to reach out to me. All right.

All right. Yeah, that was just— I mean, like something can win the internet for the day and like that won the internet. Oh, so, you know, it has like insane reach.

It was insane.

Yeah. Amazing. Thanks for doing this, by the way. I know that you, uh, you know, you kind of didn't know what you're going to do. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you had a fun time. Yeah, I definitely did because you're somebody I followed for a long time. And I think the people I respect the most, like some people respect like Elon Musk the most, some people respect because it's like, oh, he conquers, like, you know, taking us to another planet.

Yeah.

Uh, but I always admire thinkers. Like I think, uh, a great thinker is somebody who's, who puts out original thoughts and I don't know, makes you think about the world a little differently. Those are my favorite types of people. So I really appreciate you coming on. Thanks, dude. I'm glad we did it. Absolutely, man. It's my pleasure. Where do you want people to go? The YouTube channel, I'm assuming is—

Check out the YouTube channel. There's going to be more of those videos coming out.

Mark Manson. What is the—

Yeah, if you just search Mark Manson on YouTube, it'll pop up. And then markmanson.net, got a newsletter there. And I think that's, you know, buy the books, whatever.

I don't give a fuck.

Yeah, I don't give a fuck. Buy my shit. Awesome.

Cool. That's a wrap. All right.

Yeah. I feel like I could rule the world. I know I could be what I want to. I put my all in it like no days off. On the road, let's travel, never looking back.